Where Your Favorite Foods Really Come From Slideshow

One of the more surprising discoveries is that our beloved tempura shrimp and vegetables is actually Portuguese. Sure, if we do a little Freudian free association beginning with the word "fried" we’d most likely find our way to Southern Europe, specifically, the Mediterranean and fried calamari, but how did the concept make its way to Japan, where, according to The Food Timeline, Edo period foods were rarely fried in fat? With a little help from 17-century Chinese influence.